Breeding Journal DataSheetThis first post should be updated regularly to include new information as events take place or changes are made to your system

General Species: Orange Amphiprion ocellaris Social Structure: Pair, these are a pair that I raised previously from eggs. Size of Individuals: Large, female larger than male Age of Individuals: At least 2 years of consistent spawning Date added to Tank: 3-4 years ago. They are in a cube system with other broodstock.

Broodstock Feeding Details Food Types: Frozen Ocean Nutrition Formula One gel and various pellets, and other frozen foods Feeding Schedule: Once or twice a day.

Spawning Details Date of First Spawn: Can't remember. Date of this spawn is 7/25/2011 Spawn Time of Day: late afternoon Dates of Consecutive Spawns: every eleven days Courtship Details: Female was huge, larger than I've seen her. Male pays strict attention and tries to be where she is. They cleaned half of a 6 inch pot interier of some sheet cyano that is taking over everything . They laid the eggs on the top inside curve of the pot, a large, solidly packed nest that extends a quarter of the way around the pot. Much bigger area is taken by the eggs than the fish combined. Egg Size: 2 mm x 1 mm oval ? Egg Color: Flower pot orange, hard to see in the pictures Egg Count: 541-600!

Hatch Details Hatch Date: August 1 with a few July 31, many more August 2 Hatch Time of Day: after lights out # Days after Spawn: 7 or 8 Larvae Description: tiny eyes with a tail, tummy, clear

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The eggs match the pot in color, and comprise a quarter of the 6 inch diameter pot's circumference, about 7 linear inches around the rim. Rather dense, this is the biggest nest of eggs I've ever gotten from an ocellaris. The female isn't really that big a fish.

Yesterday I scraped the eggs off the pot and siphoned into a brine shrimp hatcher, added a drop of methylene blue, and found maybe a dozen hatched ones after an hour in the dark. So I thought that the majority would hatch tonight. Well, … maybe a quarter hatched this evening, so I put the rest back in the hatcher with another drop of methylene blue and we will see if I get any more hatched tomorrow.

The rest of them are chowing down on N-rich enriched rots. It's the first time I've used this product, and I'm curious if I notice any difference. I've left a dim light on the tank, with the hatcher shaded. Hopefully, there will be more hatching tomorrow.

The disadvantage of the hatcher is that one may not be able to separate the hatched from the unhatched. If you leave the hatched in there, they get beaten up a lot. If you don't use enough air, the unhatched will never hatch. Otherwise I like the hatcher very much.

I'm using a purchased brine shrimp hatcher, the kind that uses a cut off upside down soda bottle. I have pots in the broodstock tanks because they seem to like the cave like space. They tend to spawn on the pots. I have tiles in one cube, and they are not yet spawning.

This spawn was so large and the pot so covered in cyano, that I did not want to hatch directly off the pot. It would be difficult to get an airstream to jostle all the eggs given their position on the rim of the pot, and its size. So I just took the eggs.

Frankly, I'm out of practice. It's been a long while since I've hatched eggs. My timing is clearly off.

I did get some more hatchlings, probably a couple hundred or so larvae all together. I've done better with smaller nests, but I never do that well when it takes two days to get them all out.

I have enough rotifers for 541 larvae though, so even in 10 gallons, there are plenty of rots. Once a day addition of NRich 8 hour rots, and the rest of time I just add RotiGrow+ to the tank to green it up. About 10 drops morning and evening. They are easy at this stage. I did have to siphon out the dead eggs and there was a layer of sedimented algae as well. I've seen more energetic larvae, but then I did starve the parents one day before the eggs were laid. MBI conference….totally worth it.

Oh, since I scraped the eggs off a day early, and there were two days to the hatch, I would have lost them all without the methylene blue. Fungus is real, and it kills eggs. I've done that experiment.

I think they just followed the curve of the pot, and it was so big, they just kept going!

I'm just trying to maximize my MBI points. I do blacks and oranges all the time. If I kept good records with pictures, I could have gotten all the ocellaris points long ago. I keep a notebook for my day job, and afford myself the luxury of not writing everything down in the home "lab". I know I should. But this is for fun, not work.

I wanted to point out something kinda clever about this hatcher. Notice how the tubing goes up and thru a hole in the top of the cup? I made that hole with an ordinary paper punch. Threading the tubing thru this way prevents any accidental draining of the hatcher. The water all stays in. I find this handy, and thought I would share….

Well…there are a lot of larvae. I've been leaving the lights on constantly for these guys, After noticing a slight decline in rotifer production in my cultures and no rotifers left in the larval tank, I've started sprinkling Otohime A, just a dusting, whenever I think of it. I've seen some strike it at yesterday at 7 days. And I've started some brine shrimp hatching, which I'll introduce today. I don't ususally use brine shrimp, but in cases like this, close to meta, where I'm afraid I don't have enough live food, decapped cycsts in the fridge are a great fall back.

I'm dripping in a gallon or two a day of fresh saltwater, and siphoning bottom daily, sorta. I'm dosing the tank with chloramX daily as well, because I don't have an ammonia alert badge in there, and I figure it can't hurt.

Last night I turned the lights out for the first time. They are all fine this morning. Some had full bellies even though it was pitch black for 8 hours or so. Go figure!